A number of changes are needed to the eTime system to meet the changing governance and regulatory requirements from Research Sponsors and the HMRC.
The new horizon 2020 requirements introduced by the EU for their research grant awards, impact on the information we are required to present to them in support of the EU applications in relation to salary costs.
In addition, there is no link between the recording of the time and the costing of the salary data on eTime. Salaries have to be costed appropriately to the grants in line with the time recorded. This link does not exist and there is a risk that we may not be claiming correctly.
More stringent reporting requirements from the funding councils mean that a lot of information is having to be gathered on the spreadsheets prior to the time recording on eTime. Amendments to eTime would permit users to enter the information more easily.
There is currently an issue with the way eTime deals with people that have left the University or who are no longer on the payroll. This means that we cannot easily retrospectively add their time to the grant to recover their costs. Staff who leave the University 'disappear' from the system after a short time meaning their timesheets cannot be corrected retrospectively without using a cumbersome work-around. This is also an issue for guaranteed hours staff as there is no archiving facility. If a member of staff leaves the data disappears from the system which is not appropriate for audit purposes. While this may not be possible to hold the data in the system some form of historical querying is needed.
Changes in regulations mean it is now acceptable to have timesheets electronically signed. These currently need to be printed from the system and signed by the member of staff and their supervisor and the originals kept for up to 10 or 11 years. There is an opportunity to amend the system so timesheets can be 'electronically signed' and remain within the system without the need for paper copies.
Timesheets are required to be filled in at least monthly and we currently can't complete timesheets for H2020 projects and won't be able to without system changes.
Operational issues with eTime regarding layout and usability require resolution, e.g. a report within the system called 'Research Timesheet Summary port' will not run. This report is needed to calculate the EC fEC indirect cost rates and is urgently required.
The usability of eTime needs to be enhanced to make it easier and more intuitive for PIs to use.
Reporting on the information held in relation to timesheets needs to be enhanced, e.g. it is not possible to review the timesheet reports via WebFirst etc
eTime was developed when Hours to be Notified staff were introduced. Since then this concept has been replaced by the introduction of Guaranteed Hours staff whereby there is a fixed (i.e.hours offered) and variable element (i.e. hours worked) to the contract and staff costs. eTime requires to be developed to manage this requirement. Workflow arrangements for the currently processing to allow for error handling corrections after the information has been sent to payroll at level 2 approval. Recording of leave, e.g. sick, paternity or maternity which is not being paid but required to be collected by Individuals.
Given the scale of re-write of eTime – it is proposed that the upgrade to cold fusion is included in this project.
Other contributors:
Jaqueline McMahon, Susan McLaren, Research Community and Guaranteed Hours
What would happen if the project did not take place?:
Another system would have to be developed to record this information
Unwillingness to take on EU grant funding due to reporting arrangements
Inability to collate information needed to cost the claims without significant manual error
Continued dissatisfaction with the user community with research support
Without an acceptable time recording system all staff costs will be disallowed. Budget for personnel costs in FP7, over all projects, was approximately €100m - H2020 is expected to be more. The University needs an acceptable time recording system to be able to participate in EC H2020 projects
Risk that payments for guaranteed hours staff not in line with policy
Additional information:
The University has set a 6% target income increase for research and has the specific objective of increasing the activity on EU grants.
The funding environment for research councils and sponsors is becoming harder and the rules and governance arrangements more strict, requiring more verification in support of the research grant claims and also
Horizon 2020 claims will start to become a volume issue in Summer 2016 and we need to be prepared to provide this detail in the claims.
We have recently held a number of workshops asking staff for their feedback on our systems and there was evidence of significant support for this project across all areas of the University.
Previous EC audits on projects have consistently included recommendations to improve our time recording system. There is a risk that the EC could conclude we have a systemic error in calculating personnel costs and apply a penalty across all projects.
Guaranteed hours staff are a major factor in the management of teaching and research in the University. It is essential that we have a fast and flexible system of dealing with this process to ensure that payments made to staff are in line with HMRC requirements and operational needs.
Risks
Not doing this project would impact on the capacity in the research and guaranteed hours community
The exact reporting EU arrangements are being finalised but there is a risk that these may change in the next few months.
Summary of eTime experiences in November
E-authorisations links cause problems – problematic and unnecessary that very senior staff are actually responsible for setting-up e-time profiles
Inefficient workflow -there seems to be an absence of comprehensive and useful feed with HR systems so that to set-up an e-time profile, we need to first know UUN, staff no, contract details etc. People requesting don’t necessarily have this info and then the RO has to contact researchers and HR to obtain this info so that a person can be authorised to simply complete a timesheet. There are no searchable lists for profiles.
People are set-up with e-time profiles based on most current contract. System can not deal with people whose contract terms changes during a recording period- the contractual fte showing on the timesheet then has to be manually adjusted which introduces lots of human error. This can be particularly problematic if timesheets are being done in bulk retrospectively
There have been quite a lot of experiences of profile issues as result of incompatible feeds from HR e.g. profiles disappearing each night because HR feeds overwrites change. Circumstances are not exceptional e.g. if a student becomes a staff member, if someone leaves/retires and comes back, if someone changes posts fte etc. for some people we never resolved their profile issues despite months of fisuser calls and have resorted to excel spreadsheets.
It should be easy to allow people to allocate/contribute time to other Research codes (e.g. someone might be set-up to only work on RTD but this changes during implementation. ) I don’t understand why we have overcentralised the ability of people to be allocated to other R numbers- the RO should be able to do this without e-authorisation functionality
Inability to delete timesheet if have made an error and recreate (even if has not been submitted)
Default option where input start and end dates and times should not be starting point – most times funders only requiring collation of information at monthly unit level so that should be default option (although this may be different for payment option).
Language used to describe options in terms of task category and task type is not understandable to lay academics and indeed general administrators also struggle with terminology
The monthly task input screen could benefit from being more intuitive – people are not sure what fields they can miss or need to tab; this is particularly the case when recording annual leave.
General navigation needs to be much more streamline in the way that move between screens
Inability to select multiple monthly timesheets for print (require to actually open each month and then open print preview before printing only one month timesheet)
Inability to select multiple monthly timesheets for approval
Inability to generate reports which summarise hours worked for individual chargeable activities, non-chargeable activity and non-productive time. Need to be able to select parameters and run reports so that can summarise productive and contractual hrs over a period in order to double check account charges for a particular project or to understand fte or leave over a period etc (note that there has been some recent reporting functionality added but I can not view the research project summary to see if useful and comprehensive but other reports are not that helpful)
Inability to view any comments that may have been recorded against tasks as useful info – even the print functionality does not highlight these comments
Inability to access or run reports on historical data. Even if a profile disappears because someone is no longer employed, we still need to have access to their timesheet information for later reports to funders. The whole archiving approach does not reflect operational reality for access.
General inability to download data into excel which could help with reconciliations (not sure of most recent reporting functionality)
Approval process does not delegate ability to amend at school level once approved – this leads to deliberate decision not to approve on monthly basis (e.g someone might be contributing 30% effort over a period but doing so in a variable way and we only know that they have not made an error at the end of the period when the total effort is summed up. I now no longer approve them until the end so as to avoid having to chase others to retrieve them)
System messages are not always correct. E.g. warning messages can be generated on hours but that is because the system does not recognise that the person may be working a fixed day pattern (as opposed to contributing an average % of effort in that month)
There needs to be clearer framework on contractual time measurement, particularly if e-time will be used for timerecording beyond ec projects. EC projects have tended to be recorded on standard basis of 1540 (7 hrs a day with 6 wks holidays). ESRC is on basis of 1650 (7.5 hrs with 8 weeks holidays). Creates inconsistency of practices when people are accounting for time.
Problems are created by inability to show the extent of non-contractual time that is spent by researchers - think there should be some ability to quantify this time on monthly timesheets and researchers often consider that the purpose then has no personal benefit; also that there is a way of highlighting in-kind contributions which are not going to be charged. At present reflecting in kind time against an R number but then highlighting that it should be omitted from charge by email.
Who does it affect?:
The Research Community in the University, Sponsors and Funders and all Schools and Departments paying staff under Guaranteed Hours scheme.
Why is it needed/What are the benefits?:
Benefits
Compliance with sponsor requirements
Increased staff capacity
Better information to support grant claims
Greater productivity
Improved quality
Removal of bottleneck
Better staff experience
There are nearly 4,500 live research grants, research income is a 1/3 of university income and every school undertakes research.
The University is ranked number 4 in the UK in terms of volume of research. To sustain and develop this level of activity, good operational systems and processes are needed and to protect the University’s reputation in this area.
Given that nearly 1/3 of research spend relates to staffing it is essential that this part of the process is properly recorded and managed.
Millions of pounds are paid to guaranteed hours staff at the University and several thousand are employed. Changes to the current processes make it is essential that eTime is updated to ensure that these payments are made timeously and accurately. Failure to do so will exacerbate what is already a difficult process, risk HMRC/PAYE compliance and impact on the university’s reputation and a good employer.
There is also a strong link between guaranteed hours staff and research and the costing and coding of salaries linked to timesheets is needed for claims management.
BI/MI requirement?:
Some changes to WebFirst reports may be needed to support the changes for research and guaranteed hours.
Compliance justification (if relevant):
Meet external legislative requirement
Maintain critical University business system AND no practical workarounds available
The eTime system is required to meet the research funding conditions in relation to staff costs and information needed to support their spend. Given the scale of research income and the number of people involved in this across the University failure to deliver the functionality needed to support research claims would result in local systems being developed, duplication of work etc. as we have to meet the sponsor requirements. Recent changes to sponsor requirements require significant system modification to meet this. This is compliance is mandatory.
The introduction of the “guaranteed hours” scheme, replaces the HTBN system upon which eTIme was based impacts on the functionality needed in the eTime system.
System maintenance and upgrades are normally deemed to be compliance and eTime has not been introduced since it was rolled in August 2013.